Palo Alto

Im researching on some places we can go while in San Francisco. Palo Alto came up. Thought it might be interesting to go there, especially when Facebook’s headquarters is there as well. Maybe can go there to find Mark Zuckerman and add some friends to reach my goal of 500 friends.

The Palo Alto city’s website is very boring and in fact right on the press release section on the homepage, out of 6 news items, three are of robberies and one is of an accident. Man, Palo Alto sounds like a dangerous place.

 

Booked

We finally managed to book our international and domestic flights for our holiday. Flying to SFO via Seoul then going to Colorado to ski and then spending some time in SFO for some chilling and factory outlet shopping. Hee hee.

I even ordered a Kindle 3 as well as a Bluetooth headset to be delivered for free to our hotel in Colorado so that I can pick it up there and save on shipping costs.

The trip is already beginning to pay for itself. W00t!

 

Flor

We went to this place some time back but i was too lazy to post.

Someone heard from someone about this place which sells great cakes.

Took us a while to find as i wasnt familiar with Duxton.



The tiny place was packed and when we reached at 3pm on Saturday. There wasnt a huge variety left. By the time we left at 4pm, most of it was sold out! Crazy.

The pic below was taken the second time we went there.



First time we went, we ordered so much. Haha.



Ordered the first round then went back to order two more.



In the end, we even took pictures of Pastry Chef Yamashita. I bet he only washes dishes back in Japan but before we Singaporeans are so Jap crazy, we even revere the dish washers of Japan.

Another Set

Saw the Amazon Gold Box offer the other day. 65% off the UE Triple Fi earphones. 65% off leh!!! chop chop ordered.

It arrived last week. The ziplock bag on the right side contains the earphones and the nice metallic box is in the middle. It's a bit weird that the box is the focal point instead of the earphones. Haha.

Package

I got a package today. From Jones the Grocer. No idea who would have sent me so im excited to know but at the same time, i am not super keen cos im not a huge fan of JTG.



Turns out i was right. Whole box of rabbit food. But very nice of the client to send anyway.



PS: My camera is very clear!

*shudder*

My sister is in Buenos Aires for work. We are all a little worried because it's the first time she's travelled for work.

The first night, she emailed me when she arrived and said that she didnt bring her ipod charging cable. It's a good thing she isnt an iphone user cos iphone users cannot do without a charging cable for 18 hours.

Well, i guess i guess what handphone she uses doesnt matter because in the second day she emailed me to tell me that she lost her handphone when she was out taking pictures on her handphone and a motorcycle drove pass and snatched her handphone out of her hand!

Gosh that's scary! She's only back in 9 days. *Shudder*

Another?

Wow.. just managed to sign another deal. They’re just dropping from the sky!

It’s raining deals. Hallelujah..

 

Deals!

We received the signed documents for our first deal in China yesterday. What a sigh of relief. It has been a crazy journey getting that signed. After I landed in Beijing, I got an email from another client that they’ve couriered their signed documents to us as well. So that’s two deals in two weeks. WHOPEE!

In some ways, the feeling is somewhat dulled because at some point during the negotiations you know the deal is done but got to wade through the administrative hassle before you see the executed documents.

Im happy nonetheless. Two deals in two weeks. W00t!

Blackberry

I really love my blackberry. I can sit here on my bed and reply to my work emails. Then get in touch with my friends on blackberry messenger and then some other friends on whatsapp. SMS is getting quite obsolete but some people are still there. I probably send about 150 per month. Such convenience.

Notes

I don’t know if im being anal. My Chairman just sent a note to a few department heads to say that he’ll be travelling on XXX and on holiday for XXX. Then one bugger replied “Your schedule is noted with thanks.”

I don’t get it. Why do people note things with thanks? Surely they can note it with cupcakes or bubble tea.

So stupid.

 

Peacocks

I never knew this.

Clubbed

Collected my new clubs last week and ive already played 2 rounds of golf with them. Takes some getting used to.

Playing again this Saturday. Phew that makes 5 rounds in 2 weeks.

 

Hypocrites

I hate hypocrisy. A lot of people say they hate it too but a lot of them don't blog about it.

I just got this sms from a friend who's getting married. I have no idea why her fiancé is excited to see me given I have never met him before. I don't know why she is so sorry we didn't catch up because the last time I saw her was 10 months ago at someone else's wedding and it was probably a year before that, that I last saw her, also someone else's wedding. Not sure how true " Am sure we will catch up thereafter" is.

Hi Cornball, I've mailed you my invitation card. Hope to see you on XXXX, lunch at XXX. XXX n i are excited to see you. I'm very sorry that we didn't catch up prior to my big day, been too busy settling wedding stuff n caught up w personal life. Am sure we will catch up thereafter

Batam

Going to Batam for 2 days with the boys for lotsa golf next week. W00t!

 

Substantial Savings

With some staff discount, plus the airport giving 7% discount on top of the 7% GST absorption plus $50 voucher for purchases more than $450, i bought $730 worth of products for just $450! Wont be buying cologne or SKII for some time.

Argh

I cant believe it's only 9 days ago that i went to order my clubs. I dont know how im going to survive the next 3 -5 days.

My vouchers came in. Going to pay with my $800 worth of vouchers. w00t!

Meet again

Just added another work dinner appointment on Saturday night.

 

Bleah.

 

Meet Meet Meet

Saturday lunch meeting, Sunday dinner meeting until 11pm, Monday whole morning meeting.

 

It’s 2pm now and im too tired to even go for lunch.

 

Next Saturday again got lunch meeting.

 

Yawn..

 

Clubbing

After numerous trips to Golf House, ive finally taken the plunge and custom fitted a set of irons. W00t. Coming in from the US in 4-6 weeks. W00t!

 

New Car?

The little Mont Blanc thingy dropped off from my key chain.

Think I need a new car soon.

Mahjong

Seems like it’s harder to find a mah-jong game than a golf game recently.

 

I went to get fitted for new irons yesterday. So exciting. Going to utilise to Royal Sporting House vouchers.

 

Advice

Here's another example of how golf brings so much more to your life.

Stay in the present, friends.

Cheapo

If you've follow my blog long enough, you'd know i'm a cheap ass.

If I see any nice soaps or shampoos during my travels, ill bring them home.



I end up having a lot of these and not knowing what to do with them.

But now that im playing golf, i use them when i shower after my games.

Amazing how golf brings such joy to my life.

Ties

I like my ties to be uncreased when i travel. So i put them in the the box.



But each box can only put one tie. So i just usually bring one tie for the entire trip.

The other day in HK, i realised i was meeting a client two times in two days. I didnt want them to know i only bring one tie. Ended up having to buy another tie.

Bought a Hermes. =)

My colleague's car tyre got punctured and he wrote a note to say he'll be late.
Two hours later, he wrote again to say that he could find the right tyre size.
I replied all to say, "I hate spare tyres".
Wonder if anyone got it.

Sent via BlackBerry from SingTel!

Zouk

It's 7am now. I woke up early to find the address of Zouk cos i have a meeting at their office at 5pm today. Damn the bad timing.

Yes, ive never been to Zouk before.

Earphones

Thanks to Jedirogue, i was introduced to a nice lobang for some nice earphones. I was glad because i was for new earphones for my ipad so that i bring have to use my ipod's phone back and forth my office.

It's not a usual discount. It's a 65% off, not 35% off, but a whopping 65% OFF!! After the shipping costs are included, it's S$122.

Finally arrived the other day.. i was in my colleague's office when i saw the package arrive.



Here's the goody.



I checked at Changi Airport the other day. It costs S$360!! Substantial savings for me! w00t!

Hospitals

I dont handle hospitals well.

Obviously hospitals arent usually happy places to be at, except when you're visiting a new-born. But then, i hardly go visit new-borns in hospitals, so hospitals are just bad places to me.

It's quite heart wrenching to see Someone puking blood every few hours.

Im glad she's out now cos sleeping in the hospital isnt fun.

IT Tips

I just saw these IT tips in the first edition of a company’s newsletter:

Q: Why can’t my PC boot up?

A: Check all the power and cable connection points. It may be a case of wires becoming disconnected or power switches shut off. Double check all connections and try again.

 

Q: How do I reboot my system if it hangs and pressing ‘Ctrl-alt-delete’ just doesn’t work?

A: An alternative way to reboot the system is to press and hold the ‘On/Off’ button on the CPU for 4 seconds.

 

You can be sure that this company isn’t an IT company.

Alignment

Some people say that if two women lived together long enough, their menstrual cycle will be aligned.

I think now my boss and I have the same haircut cycles. We both have to cut hair at around the same time.

 

SLA

SLA has a S$12million fraud case. The protagonist bought many things with the money, including a Lamborghini.

I applied for a job at SLA long time ago and one of the personality test questions they asked was “what is your dream car?”

Maybe if I had said Lamborghini, I’d be working there now and getting the spoils of some of the S$12 million now.

 

Member

Im now a Term Member of a golf club in JB. Ive been playing there every Saturday morning for the last 4-5 months and thought it’d be more economical to be a member.

The place is really dilapidated. Lousy, dirty pool, not very clean showers, with an F&B outlet ive never eaten at before. But hey, they have two courses there, so that’s all it matters.

I just need to play 13 times within a year to break even and ive already played 2 times. Kio dio!!!!!!!!!!!!

Assistant

Some of you may know I am a fan of The Office.

In the show, there's a character - Dwight Schrute whose title is Assistant to the Regional Manager. He's quite pompous so when he introduces himself, he'll say he's the Assistant Regional Manager instead. His colleague - Jim Halpert - will always correct him and put him in his place.

A somewhat situation happened to me in one of my China trips.

One of the Chinese buggers introduced me as Assistant to the Vice President but im actually Assistant Vice President. :( I thought he made a mistake the first time he said it until he started calling me 林助理. :(

Ramen

I passed by a instant ramen sale the other day and decided to buy something.

This costs S$11 for five packets. Crazy.

Vrrrooom

I took the bullet train from Nanjing to Shanghai the other day. It took all of 73 mins. By plane, it's 55 minutes.

Word of advice, get the cabin numbers between 11-14. I got cabin 5 and it's waaaay in front. First class and second and cattle class are all interspersed, so front doesnt mean first class.

Phew

We took the 7PM flight to HK last night. Half an hour before the scheduled landing, the pilot announced a severe thunderstorm and he'd fly around to wait and see.

After half an hour, he announced that 5 planes were also flying around and he has no choice but to land in Guangzhou cos Macau airport is closed (Casino can open 24 hours, airport cannot. Morons)

Sian diao cos we were on a packed schedule.

3 minutes later, pilot announced again that HK airport allowed us to land there. YAAAY.

Thunderstorm was quite bad as we descended. It was pretty scary. In fact it was so bad that they had to suspend the luggage transfer. Heng our bags were already transferred before the suspension.

Sent via BlackBerry from SingTel!

Mobile blogging

Its been long overdue and largely due to my inertia that I haven't tried mobile blogging, i.e. blogging from my blackberry, ipad, wherever.

But now that I've been travelling more and spending more idle time at airports and cars, this has become a very attractive option.

Sent via BlackBerry from SingTel!

Tadaa!

I had wanted an ipad and ordered one from my colleague who had a lobang to get it for me on the launch day itself without having to queue. (which turned out to be a good lobang)

But i was travelling over that launch day Friday and back on Saturday so i told her to collect it and lock it in my drawer so that i can go to the office over the weekend and collect it. Hee hee.. urgent mah cos i was on leave on the following Monday and Tuesday as it was my birthday.

"Someone" came to pick me up at the airport on Saturday and when i opened the boot to put my luggage, i saw an ipad!!!!!!! Turns out Someone called my office general line to look for my colleague and told her to pass her the ipad.

Sneaky!



I also got this car wallet from my Uni friends.



Seems like im getting lesser and lesser presents every year! Boo!

Travelling

In between the last few posts, i have in fact travelled quite a few times to China.

Im leaving for China again tomorrow and then back there on 13 September again.

Yawn.

The reason why i have been so busy is cos i managed to sign quite a few LOIs in the last few months. In fact i had signed enough LOIs by June this year to meet my full year target! So now i have been busy finalising the docs. Its been longer than i thought.

So i hope for a good bonus at the end of the year.

Mongolians

When i was last in Beijing, the client brought out to this Mongolian place to eat. Halfway through, some musicians entered our private room and offered to play some 草原music.

Sanya

It was actually quite some time back when i last came to Sanya. Pretty surprised how long really. Not that i miss it, given that it's a huge pain in the butt to get there from anywhere in China.

But there i was.. remembering how balmy it is. It felt like a huge body of hot air just whacks your face as you exit the airport.

The place we stayed at was quite decent.





I actually dont know why i took a picture of the bathroom.



When we arrived, there were two pretty ladies to bring us each to our respective rooms.



They each carried a "bag"-like thing, which i was quite curious.



I later found out that the various pockets were for the check in folio, as well as the portable credit card machine. And that tumbler in the bag? It contains orange juice which she poured into a glass, which was also in one of the pockets! HAHA. I was pretty amused.

The rest of the time there was quite uneventful and i didnt spend much time there anyway. Nowadays i rarely stay more than 2 nights in the same hotel.

Change

I havent blogged for a little more than a month now. In part it's due to my busyness at work and in part i was trying to think of a new blog address.

Well, here it is... http://cornballskorner.blogspot.com/

The following posts would be some of those back-dated ones that i didnt have time to post.

Busy Day

I was on leave today and i accomplished so many things, i just had to put it down.

Woke at 8am to go change my white headlights to the regular orange ones at AMK for VICOM check.

Went AMK for VICOM check.

Then Smith Street to put screen protector for my ipad and BB. On the way a client called me and talked for 30 mins

Then lunch at Smith St market.

Then to Bt Merah to re-grip my clubs.

Then to Adelphi for facial. Even managed to squeeze some time to go Funan. (My Mac can play Starcraft II. YAY!)

Then to the dentist at Katong.

Then to the range at Marina Bay.

Phew im bushed...

Golf tmr at 8:30am!

Longjing Tea - Hangzhou

Hangzhou is where longjing tea is from.

Another client decided that they wanted to give us an authentic experience so brought us to this place which supposedly is the origins of longjing tea. I wasnt too convinced nor excited cos the place was quite high up a winding hill.

The waitress pointed us to some bushes (tea presumably) and said that the 18 were planted by Emperor Qianlong when he came to Hangzhou. The leaves are harvested only a few times (or was it once) a year and they cost a bomb! I was a little skeptical cos Qianlong died long ago and how can the bushes still be here???



Further up a flight of stairs, she introduced this well as the Longjing.. THE well where the water is drawn to make the Dragon Well tea. It was a little dark..



i came back and wiki-ed it and it turns out that Qianlong really planted 18 bushes and they're still living! Gosh. I visited a piece of history!

Thousand Islet Lake

Thousand Islet Lake is a little more than 2 hours from Hangzhou.

I hate long car rides and 2 hours is 2 hours too long. Ass was hurting after.

It's basically a lake made up of many islets (duh!). The islets are actually the tops of mountains and they became islets after the damming of the river upstream.

It's actually quite pretty.



The client brought us to this quaint little place for lunch. I had wanted to go to a hotel to eat but they decided that local food is the way to go :(



Have to catch your own fish too.



They has asked me to order but after staring at all the food they had in the freezer and not recognising 90% of them and getting sick of asking what's this and what's that (found out that one of the meat was rabbit), i asked the client to order.

They ordered alot.. more than 13 dishes in fact.. but only 1 meat and 1 fish and the rest were veggies. I should have ordered.

Shanghai Tarts

I spent the weekend in Shanghai and was walking around.

Saw a queue. No idea what they're queuing for but hey, if there's a queue, then it must be good.



Turned out to be egg tarts and there was a discount. RMB3.80 to RMB3.50! w00t! What a steal!

I bought 6, which turned out to be my dinner that night.

After buying, i walked pass the shop and saw its sign board. "Shanghai's Best Egg Tart"



I subsequently confirmed this at dinner. Yummy.

8 Cities in 12 days

I was so busy these days that i didnt have time to blog about my previous China trip before i had to go on the next China trip.

If the previous trip (5 cities in 6 days was siong), this trip was even more siong - 8 cities in 12 days.

Shanghai - Hangzhou - Thousand Islet - Hangzhou - Shanghai - Wuxi - Suzhou - Sanya - Beijing - Xiamen

I had a sinking feeling it wasnt going to be a smooth trip when the first text i received when i reached Shanghai on Monday night was that the client's driver who was bringing us to Hangzhou was late. Then i got another text that the person receiving us with here but the driver would take some time. I thought it was a little odd that the receiver would come separately with the driver. The receiver received us and apologised then said we could have dinner first at the airport while waiting for the driver. I got into some small talk with the receiver and i realised that my receiver doesnt actually work for my client. She was just a friend of the client who came to receive us cos the driver was late. Needless to say, we didnt have much to talk about over dinner.

Not the best way to start a two-week China trip.

At the end, i stayed in 6 hotels in the last 12 days... will blog each city as soon as i have the time.

Nantsuttei

Like i mentioned many times before, the Japanese just have us captive with all their fancy cuisine, fashion and stationery...

Only the japanese can put a picture like this of their founder and still have people flocking to queue up for their ramen.



There's a ramen craze sweeping town recently.. there used to be the one at Gallery Hotel, which i cant remember the name, then Tampopo, then Nantsuttei, then Ippudo, which i also just tried the other day. Very yummy but best to go before 12 noon on a weekday.

Town Councils

OMG.. I saw this piece of breaking news. Come on Straits Times, you’re just making things too obvious.

HDB residents can now gauge how well their town councils are doing their job, following the release of the first report card on the performance of the 16 councils in Singapore.

The two best performers are Ang Mo Kio-Yio Chu Kang led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and Tanjong Pagar headed by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, according to the government's Town Council Management Report.

The two worst performers are run by the opposition: Hougang, by the Workers' Party's Low Thia Khiang, and Potong Pasir by the Singapore People's Party's Chiam See Tong.

Their low grades are due mainly to the bigger proportion of homes failing to pay their service and conservancy charges (S&CC) for at least three months.

But take away the level of arrears, and the gap between the performance levels of the councils run by the People's Action Party (PAP) and the opposition narrows significantly.

Peacocks

Saw some peacocks at this hotel i was at the other day. So many of them it looks a little scary.

Hectic

***I obviously was supposed to post this on 29 May but only ended up doing so on 9 June***

**This entry was supposed to be posted on 3 May but i have been too busy. Between the typing of this post and the date of posting (29 May), i travelled to China again for 10 days, which i might blog about. **

It has been some time since i blogged cos i have been in China for the whole of last week and China blocked Blogspot.

We were in Chengdu for 14 hours meeting clients before flying to Lijiang.

Lijiang looks like a place stuck in time cos they still have an old town (古城）that looks like a scene out of a period drama.





The hotel we stayed in was pretty modern actually.



After 22 hours in Lijiang, we flew to Nanjing. Man, that was a 6 hour journey due to a stopover. Damn. I shudder when i think of it now.

We arrived at the Nanjing hotel at 2am only to be told that the hotel was overbooked and they gave us the Presidential Suite which had two rooms. What the... it was so weird cos the Presidential Suite had a big living room so we just basically entered the room together and each went to a room. We stayed there for two nights and it was weird cos we didnt really "hang out" in the living room area and just stay holed up in our rooms. We BBM-ed each other instead. Like literally have a conversation like "Today was a good day ya.."

We managed to sign two LOIs after meeting the client for the first time at 10am that morning and ironing out all the details by 6pm. So that was a happy outcome for us.

WHOPPEE!

We went to Shanghai after Nanjing. My boss decided to use his own money and stay in one of the newer nicer hotels. After checking into my hotel, i went to pick him up from his hotel for a meeting. The traffic was quite bad due to the Expo but it was taking much longer than i knew it would and the surroundings were getting quite unfamiliar. So i asked the driver if she (yes, it's a lady driver :( ) knew where the hotel was. She replied emphatically "YES! My relatives have held many wedding dinners there. In fact i was there two weekends ago!"

Alarm bells just rang in my head. How can a taxi driver and her family afford weddings in one of the nicest new hotels in Shanghai? To cut the long story short, after driving for 15 more minutes, she brought me to a lousy ass hotel which has the same chinese name as the one my boss was staying. Needless to say, i was late and not a happy camper. :(

Mask

My boss gave the few of us each this today.



I was quite ill on Monday and he has been down these few days and another member was flu-ish since Wednesday.

He said we are so busy these days we cannot afford to be sick.

Siong.

Indeed we are busy. Two weeks from now, we will travel to China. Singapore-Chengdu-Lijiang-Kunming-Changsha-Nanjing-Hong Kong-Singapore.

Now, that's siong.

Books

Bought these two books the other day.

Hopefully the red one helps me seal some deals in China.

New Laptop

YAY! I got a new laptop. Largely cos my wifi was spoilt in my previous laptop and we have a new finance person coming so and she wont need wifi.

So i get a spanking new Thinkpad. Fast and light and sleek. Well, a little too sleek. The cover is so glossy it's a fingerprint magnet.



I took the pic with my blackberry on it to contrast the equipment i got when i first joined.



Although my laptop is new, the Windows Experience Index is only 3.4. Lose to ShitFong's 5.0. :(

Shenzhen

I was in Shenzhen the last few days. Quite many new hotels there. I chose to stay in one of the newer ones cos there's just something about new hotels.

Quite a nice room.



Except that being the pretenders the Chinese typically are, they tend to screw up once in a while. This time, the open concept bathroom has a bathtub that blocks the entry to the bathroom. It's so dumb!



i got back to Singapore on Friday night. I was so gian to play golf on Saturday that i followed Sox's parents to JB to play golf at 5am even though he wasnt going. Haha..

Check out the usual breakfast fare before the 7am tee off.

Lying there..

Oddly, I found the missing piece of my cufflink in the paper tray of my office printer. Wonder how it got there.

It’s a little depressing to see it lying there. Lifeless and alone.

Trepidation

Next week is one of the three weeks in a year that i know i'd fall sick. It's Board/Exco meetings week.

My CEO and President have just arrived and i just got off the phone with them as i have scheduled some meetings for them.

It's Board meeting on Wednesday and my client told me last week that he was going to sign an LOI with us on Tuesday when he's back in the office. Therefore there's a possibility i could announce our first LOI for the year in the Board meeting if he comes through for me. Another project i have been chasing is likely to make a decision at the end of March. So there's a chance of either heartbreak or elation.

My HCMC meeting went relatively well. Seems like there's an LOI lurking to be signed somewhere.

I hope the week turns out well. *shudder*

Babel

Im so happy to be going back home tomorrow that i bothered to draw this out.

My CEO is in Asia so i dragged him to Vietnam with me. He's German so he speaks German and English. The client is Vietnamese and their consultant is a Vietnamese German so the bugger speaks Vietnamese, German and English.

Here's how the meeting this meeting went.

Im not kidding. Half the time, the conversation went from German to Vietnamese and vice versa.



Most of the time i was starting into space wondering what i was going to wear for golf this weekend.

The title of this entry "Babel", refers to the Tower of Babel a bunch of sinners was trying to build to reach god and god made everyone speak different languages so that they cant communicate.

Until the devil made everyone take two languages in school.